


Immortals are Hard to Kill

by DesertVixen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, House Party Problems, Immortality, Murder Mystery, One Person is a Killer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26557822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: A mysterious host with nefarious intentions doesn't know one of their intended victims is immortal...
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	Immortals are Hard to Kill

She should have known better, Catherine scolded herself, but that was her failing.

Curiosity killed the cat, people liked to say, but sometimes the cat couldn’t die. Not when she was an immortal. At least, Catherine hadn’t found anything that could kill her yet.

It didn’t mean she wasn’t wet and cold and pretty irritable about this whole situation, but she wasn’t dead, despite being pushed off a cliff into the sea. 

The person who had pushed her didn’t know that, however. They thought that she was dead, as they had intended.

Catherine intended to make them regret that mistake.

*** 

She should have known better than to accept the invitation to a weekend on a private island, but she had been bored. The name had been one she knew, but after two hundred years or so, she knew a lot of names. Catherine had intended to call her about the invitation, but somehow never got around to it. 

So she had arrived here on the island, only to discover that while there was definitely a house party happening, the friend she had expected to meet was not in attendance.

As she mingled with the guests, she started to get a strange feeling. She had learned to pay attention to her intuition, but this was more than intuition. Two things were wrong about this gathering, and Catherine had realized that they had been neatly trapped by someone.

The first was that everyone seemed to have received rather vague invitations to join the house party. No one really seemed to know who the host and hostess were – and Catherine had found when she spoke to the butler that the host and hostess would be arriving late. 

In fact, Barnes, the butler, had explained that was the reason for the boat leaving the island. Catherine had frowned, especially when a few questions elicited the fact that Barnes and his wife were newly hired. They had met the host when he hired them, but after that all communications had been by letter. It was a plausible enough story, but she didn’t like it.

She liked the idea that they were stuck on the island with no way to get back to the mainland – unless they swam the two miles – even less. There was something about the butler that seemed off, but she could not put her finger on precisely what.

The second thing was that all of the names – and a few of the faces – were familiar. Catherine had known them, forty years ago. More to the point, she had known some of their grandparents.

She had tried to put her uneasiness aside, and apply herself to the truly excellent meal, but it was difficult with her instincts screaming that something was very wrong.

After dinner, they moved into the drawing room for cocktails, and possibly a few tables of bridge. She was about to sip her champagne when a loud, harsh voice began speaking. 

“The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.”

Everyone looked about in confusion. 

“Forty years ago, a grave injustice was committed. George Rivers, an innocent man, had his life stolen from him, and the innocent Rivers family lost everything as a result. For forty years, ten criminals have benefited from money stained by innocent blood. Now, it is time to pay the bill. None of you will leave this island alive.”

There was a pause, during which one of the women present dropped to the floor in a faint.

Then, the harsh voice listed all of their names, as well as that of the relative accused. Catherine was mildly amused to hear the voice refer to herself and her “great-aunt” Catherine MacLeod – Catherine had found it was smarter to pretend to be a vague sort of cousin rather than claiming direct descent, lest someone dig too far into her past. Instead, she was trying to figure out where the damned voice was coming from.

When the final line – “Prepare for your punishment” – had echoed throughout the room, there was an awkward moment of silence. Then, one of the men strode across the room to the gramophone and lifted the record. Fletcher Lacy – his grandfather Charles Lacy occupied a rather warm part of Catherine’s memories – held it up accusingly.

“Barnes. What the devil is this?”

The butler had stammered that he had received written instructions to play the record. 

“What the hell is going on here?” Michael Dexter – his grandfather did not occupy a warm place in Catherine’s memories, and his grandson seemed like a chip off the old block – demanded. “Whose idea was this?”

Stella Matlock sat on the floor, fanning Alice Shelton. “I doubt Rivers is just going to waltz in and announce himself.”

“We need to decide how we’re going to deal with this,” Lacy said calmly. “What do you think “Prepare for punishment” means?”

Sarah Lawrence laughed, a truly unpleasant sound. “What do you think it means? No one will leave this island alive. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.”  
The other two men – Nick Carson and John Steele – stayed silent. 

Michael lifted his glass. “You can’t seriously believe this…situation. Someone is just playing a nasty prank.”

Stella looked apprehensive. “If it’s a prank they’ve gone to quite a bit of trouble to get us here.”

“Sins of the fathers,” Michael said mockingly. “I’ll not be hung for my ancestors’ bad judgment.” He lifted his glass defiantly and drained it.

A minute later, he was on the floor, convulsing.

A minute after that he was dead.

*** 

Catherine was quite vexed with herself for not seeing the whole picture right then. The aftermath of Michael Dexter’s death had been rather predictable and had definitely shattered the idea that it could be a prank.

Alice Shelton had come around, only to have hysterics again. John Steele, a doctor, had given Stella a sedative to help get her to sleep. Fletcher Lacy and Nick Carson had carried Michael’s body to his unused bedroom. Then, they had all retired for the night, locking their doors and wedging furniture underneath door handles.

It was clear they had been trapped. It was even more clear when they woke in the morning to find that Alice Shelton would never wake again. 

“We must find a way to get off this island,” Catherine said as they sat down to breakfast. “We need to get their attention on the mainland.”

“What about swimming?” Sarah Lawrence asked in her waspish way.

Fletcher Lacy shook his head. “There’s some dangerous currents around here. And the water is quite chilly.”

“Maybe a signal fire?” Catherine drank some tea. “We could set it up on the cliff. Hopefully it would get their attention.”

She had been toying with the idea of faking her own death, but she didn’t know how it would happen. Still, she had an advantage no one else did. The men declared their intention to search the house and island, while Catherine and Stella would prepare for a signal fire. They had filled a small wagon with firewood and started to arrange it when Stella started patting her pockets.

“I could have sworn I brought some matches out,” she muttered, then turned to Catherine. “I’ll be right back.”

It seemed like Stella had been gone long enough to do a lap around the island before Catherine saw a figure returning. 

Not Stella, but Barnes. He held out the box of matches. “I was asked to bring these out – Look!”

Catherine had turned – like an idiot, she told herself now as she shivered – expecting to see a boat coming towards the island.

Instead, Barnes’ hand hit her back, shoving her hard over the edge. 

The shock of the water made her remember how much she hated cold water. She’d kept her presence of mind and kept herself under the surface until she could grasp a decent-sized boulder, using it to stay out of sight. Barnes stood there for some time, until he was obviously convinced she was drowned.

Climbing up the cliff wasn’t possible, so she’d had to swim around a little bit. She hated water. She was immortal, but cold and wet and currents were still dangers. More than that, she was annoyed at having missed the obvious clues – Barnes, who had put on the record. Barnes, who had served the drinks. Barnes, who looked rather like George Rivers around the eyes. Barnes, a murderer.

In this case, the butler had definitely done it – but he wasn’t going to get away with it.

Catherine rather enjoyed the look of total and utter shock on Barnes’ face when she opened the French doors of the dining room. She must look a fright – immortal didn’t mean she didn’t bruise and scrape, and she refused to think what her hair might look like. 

He, on the other hand, looked as if he had seen a ghost.

“Catherine? What happened?” Stella jumped up. “I asked Barnes to bring you the matches while I found a sweater, and then when I came back you were gone.”

“Barnes brought me the matches all right,” Catherine said softly. “Then he shoved me over the side of the cliff. He didn’t expect to see me again – not alive anyway. I think we’ll find he is the one who invited us all to this little party.”

***

A day later, it was a very relieved group who found themselves on the mainland. Barnes – or rather, Anthony Rivers – had been taken into custody, after confessing that he had intended to kill all of them. Catherine’s return from a watery grave had shocked him into confessing all.

Fletcher Lacy drew Catherine away from the group. “I still can’t get over how lucky you must have been, not to have drowned.” He paused. “You don’t seem to be suffering any ill effects.”

“Well, you know the old saying about how cats have nine lives,” she said teasingly. “I expect our adventure on the island may have cost me one of them.”

Fletcher laughed with her, but Catherine wondered if perhaps she hadn’t been a little too clever.

Perhaps this life would have to be over sooner rather than later, she thought with annoyance. She’d been starting to enjoy her current persona, and it was such work to have to arrange a fake death or disappearance.

“Perhaps we could have dinner in town tonight,” Fletcher said after a moment. “We could celebrate our deliverance from certain death.”

“We could,” Catherine said with a smile.

She could start planning her next disappearance tomorrow. Tonight, she was curious to see just how much Fletcher Lacy resembled his grandfather.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy it! It didn't quite go where I was thinking it would. Obviously a little influenced by And Then There Were None.


End file.
